噘 (juē): to pout (the lips)

Meanings

1 to pout (the lips)
2 to stick out (lips)
3 (dialect) to scold / chew out

Characters

噘

juē

to pout

Examples

HSK 3

小女孩生气地噘起嘴。

Xiǎo nǚhái shēngqì de juē qǐ zuǐ.

The little girl pouted her lips angrily.

HSK 3

他被妈妈噘了一顿。

Tā bèi māma juē le yí dùn.

He got chewed out by his mom (dialect usage).

Tips

usage

Most common in 噘嘴 (to pout). The 'scold' meaning is mainly northern dialect - for standard Mandarin, use 骂 or 训.

mistakes

噘 (juē) and 撅 (juē) are near-synonyms for 'stick out / pout'; 撅 is more general (撅起屁股, stick out one's behind), 噘 is mostly used with 嘴 (mouth).

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth; lips

Mouth radical on the left - the indexing radical and the literal body part involved. Pouting is a configuration of the lips themselves, so 口 carries the whole semantic load. Same radical heads other lip-action verbs 吻 (kiss), 吹 (blow), 吸 (suck in).

phonetic

厥 jué

his/her/its; to faint (here phonetic)

Right side 厥 supplies the sound (jué → juē with tone shift). It is a classical pronoun meaning 'his/her' and a medical term for 'to faint,' so it carries no semantic load here - only the rasping J-sound that fits the petulant snort of a pout. Same phonetic seeds 撅 (to break off, also pout) and 蕨 (fern).